Wilder,
Kentucky is a small town that is located just south of Cincinnati, Ohio. For
many years, the town has been subject to visits from curiosity-seekers,
tourists, paranormal investigators and media reporters. They come here in search
of a place called Bobby Mackey’s Music World, a night club and tavern that may
be one of the most haunted, and most sinister, locations in America!

The
building where the nightclub is now located has a long and bloody history in the
area, from its origins as a slaughterhouse to its tangible link to one of the
greatest ghost stories of southern Indiana. It was constructed back in the
1850’s and was one of the largest packing houses in the region for many years.
Only a well that was dug in the basement, where blood and refuse from the
animals was drained, remains from the original building. The slaughterhouse
closed down in the early 1890’s, but legend has it that the building was far
from abandoned. According to the lore, the basement of the packing house became
a ritual site for occultists. The well was used to hide the remains of small
animals that were butchered during their ceremonies.

Apparently, a small satanic group made up of local residents gathered at the
empty building, managing to practice their rituals in secret. However, they were
exposed in 1896 during one of the most spectacular murder trials ever held in
northeast Kentucky. It was so large that tickets were sold to the hearing and
more than 5,000 people stood outside the Newport, Kentucky courthouse for
information about what was taking place inside. The trial, and the murder that
spawned it, has become an integral part of Bobby Mackey’s haunted history.

Pearl
Bryan, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, was an attractive, young woman who
lived in Greencastle, Indiana in 1896. Unknown to her friends and the polite
members of Greencastle society, Pearl was pregnant. She had been seduced by her
boyfriend, William Wood, who was the son of a local Methodist minister. Confused
and unsure of what to do, Pearl let Wood convince her to have an abortion. Wood
had made arrangements for the operation with a friend of his named Scott
Jackson, who was then attending the Ohio College of Dental Surgery in
Cincinnati. Unbeknownst to Wood, Jackson was an alleged member of the occult
group that met in the former slaughterhouse in Wilder.

Pearl left her parent’s home on February 1, 1896 and told them that she was
going to Indianapolis. Instead, she made plans to meet with Jackson and his
roommate, Alonzo Walling, in Cincinnati. It would be the last time that her
parents would ever see her alive. She was at that time five months pregnant.

Jackson’s medical skills were apparently much more inept than he had led his
friend William Wood to believe. He first tried to induce an abortion using
chemicals, apparently cocaine. This substance was later discovered in Pearl’s
system during an autopsy. After that, he tried to use dental tools, but botched
that as well. After an hour or so, Jackson and Walling had a frightened, injured
and bleeding young woman on their hands and that’s when the story takes an ever
darker turn.

A newspaper
Illustration of Pearl Bryan

The
three of them left Cincinnati and traveled across the Ohio River and into
Kentucky. Jackson took them to a secluded spot near Fort Thomas and here, he and
Walling murdered Pearl Bryan. Using dental instruments, they severed her head
from her body. It was a "clean cut", according to the testimony of the doctor
who later examined the body. He also determined that Pearl had been alive at the
time because of the presence of blood on the underside of some leaves at the
murder scene.

Pearl’s
body was found about two hundred feet off the Alexandria Turnpike and less than
two miles from the abandoned slaughterhouse. As her head was nowhere to be
found, Pearl was identified by her shoes. They bore the imprint of Louis and
Hays, a Greencastle shoe company that was able to confirm that they had been
sold to Pearl Bryan. During the trial that followed, Walling testified that it
had been Jackson’s idea to cut Pearl up and distribute her body in the
Cincinnati sewers. Only the head was taken, for which Jackson apparently had
other uses. Pearl’s luxurious blond hair was later found in a valise in
Jackson’s room.

Pearl’s
head was never found and legend has it that it was used during a satanic ritual
at the slaughterhouse. It was then dumped into the well of blood and was lost.
Jackson and Walling were brought to trial in 1897 and were quickly found guilty
and sentenced to death. William Wood was later arrested and charged as an
accomplice. Charges against him were dropped when he agreed to testify against
the other two men. According to reports, Jackson and Walling were both offered
life sentences instead of execution if they would reveal the location of Pearl’s
head. Both men refused. They went to the gallows behind the courthouse in
Newport on March 21, 1897. It was the last public hanging in Campbell County.

The
stories spread that Jackson and Walling were afraid of suffering "Satan’s wrath"
if they revealed the location of Pearl’s head. The slaughterhouse was then a
closely guarded secret and other occultists would have been exposed if the two
men had talked. One reporter commented later that Walling, as the noose was
being slipped over his head, threatened to come back and haunt the area after
his death. The writer also stated a few days later, in an article in The Kentucky Post newspaper that an "evil eye" had fallen on many of the
people connected to the Pearl Bryan case. Legend has it that many of the police
officials and attorneys involved in the case later met with bad luck and tragic
ends.